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Page 4
This experience, however, gave me some slightly increased assurance
that, after all, I might indeed be in some, to me, unknown corner
of Mars, and this was very possible since during my ten years'
residence upon the planet I had explored but a comparatively tiny
area of its vast expanse.
I arose again, laughing at my forgetfulness, and soon had mastered
once more the art of attuning my earthly sinews to these changed
conditions.
As I walked slowly down the imperceptible slope toward the sea I
could not help but note the park-like appearance of the sward and
trees. The grass was as close-cropped and carpet-like as some old
English lawn and the trees themselves showed evidence of careful
pruning to a uniform height of about fifteen feet from the ground,
so that as one turned his glance in any direction the forest had
the appearance at a little distance of a vast, high-ceiled chamber.
All these evidences of careful and systematic cultivation convinced
me that I had been fortunate enough to make my entry into Mars on
this second occasion through the domain of a civilized people and
that when I should find them I would be accorded the courtesy and
protection that my rank as a Prince of the house of Tardos Mors
entitled me to.
The trees of the forest attracted my deep admiration as I proceeded
toward the sea. Their great stems, some of them fully a hundred
feet in diameter, attested their prodigious height, which I could
only guess at, since at no point could I penetrate their dense
foliage above me to more than sixty or eighty feet.
As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and twigs were
as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of American-made
pianos. The wood of some of the trees was as black as ebony, while
their nearest neighbours might perhaps gleam in the subdued light
of the forest as clear and white as the finest china, or, again,
they were azure, scarlet, yellow, or deepest purple.
And in the same way was the foliage as gay and variegated as the
stems, while the blooms that clustered thick upon them may not be
described in any earthly tongue, and indeed might challenge the
language of the gods.
As I neared the confines of the forest I beheld before me and
between the grove and the open sea, a broad expanse of meadow land,
and as I was about to emerge from the shadows of the trees a sight
met my eyes that banished all romantic and poetic reflection upon
the beauties of the strange landscape.
To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach, before
me only a vague, dim line indicated its further shore, while at my
right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic, flowed between
scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me.
At a little distance up the river rose mighty perpendicular bluffs,
from the very base of which the great river seemed to rise.
But it was not these inspiring and magnificent evidences of Nature's
grandeur that took my immediate attention from the beauties of
the forest. It was the sight of a score of figures moving slowly
about the meadow near the bank of the mighty river.
Odd, grotesque shapes they were; unlike anything that I had ever
seen upon Mars, and yet, at a distance, most manlike in appearance.
The larger specimens appeared to be about ten or twelve feet in
height when they stood erect, and to be proportioned as to torso
and lower extremities precisely as is earthly man.
Their arms, however, were very short, and from where I stood seemed
as though fashioned much after the manner of an elephant's trunk,
in that they moved in sinuous and snakelike undulations, as though
entirely without bony structure, or if there were bones it seemed
that they must be vertebral in nature.
As I watched them from behind the stem of a huge tree, one of the
creatures moved slowly in my direction, engaged in the occupation
that seemed to be the principal business of each of them, and which
consisted in running their oddly shaped hands over the surface of
the sward, for what purpose I could not determine.
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